2015 Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car

Deliverance: Chasing Perfection Up and Down the Golden State

1 October, 2015Motor Trend Staff writer

1 October, 2015Motor Trend Staff writer

Deliverance: Chasing Perfection Up and Down the Golden State

What does it mean to be the best? On the one hand, that’s a philosophical, if not rhetorical, question. On the other—and when we’re talking about what makes one car rise above its peers in terms perceived great-to-driveness—we can actually call out some specifics. Before we get into the particulars and finer points, let me attach our standard Motor Trend “of the Year” clause. Simply put, we’re talking about the best new cars this year. We’re not saying that this year’s champ is better than last year’s. That might very well be true, but we’re not saying. Not yet, anyway.

Here’s how the competition works. Each year, we ask all the manufacturers for their hottest new sporty metal. And we don’t discriminate. Hot hatches, performance sedans, muscle cars, sports cars supercars, hypercars—we just don’t care. Some OEMs, such as General Motors, always seem to say yes, please beat the snot out of all our cars. Other manufacturers—such as, say, oh, I don’t know, Lamborghini—don’t. But please trust me. We ask.

Once the cars are in our hot, grubby mitts, the first challenge is to hand them over to our crack testing team so they can perform our standard battery of tests. Stuff like 0-60 mph, the quarter mile, 60-0 mph braking, and our patented figure-eight test. Next, we arrive at Highway 198 where our friends at the California Highway Patrol are kind enough to close down a 4.2-mile stretch. For one glorious day, the Motor Trend editorial staff treats 198 like our own private hill climb while our poor photo and video teams camp out on the side of the road and sweat.

After that, all the contenders show up at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca where our man (and professional race car driver) Randy Pobst sets a fast lap in each. Once we’ve collected all the various data points, the editorial staff sits down for an oftentimes contentious, sometimes tearful, and always scream- and insult-filled voting session. Thanks to majority rule, one car will be crowned the 2015 Motor Trend Best Driver’s Car. We’re looking for that special car we most love to drive. The one that allows us to achieve our individual limits on the street as well as makes a seasoned pro happy on the racetrack. To a large degree, the winner is also the car that makes us smile the most. As for said winner, make your guesses now, then keep reading. Jonny Lieberman

DNF: Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Z07

It didn’t work. The damn Z06 retarded spark by 8 degrees, and the 1.7-liter TVS supercharger refused to make boost. No one knows why. Chevrolet came up with a “bad gas” theory, but Big Nasty got filled at the same Chevron stations as everyone else and even swallowed 8 gallons of 101 octane in an attempt to get the supercharger to wake up. No luck. What we have here is a failure to compete. What a pity. Allow me to explain why.

Potential. Have another look at the numbers: 650 horsepower; 650 lb-ft of torque; big, brawny Brembos, 15.5-inch carbon-ceramic rotors with six-piston monobloc calipers up front, 15.3-inch carbon-ceramic rotors with four-piston monobloc calipers on the rears; relatively light weight due to its stiff aluminum chassis; and in Stage III Aero guise, the Z07 package records lateral acceleration of 1.17 g, thanks in part to the massive, super-sticky Michelin Pilot Sport 2 Cup tires (285/30R19 front; 335/25R20 rear). If any car has a chance at dominating Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, it’s this Chevy. This is the horse you bet to win.

If any car could dominate Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, it’s this Corvette Z06

1:38.60. That time is the best lap that our sick Z06 managed to squeak out. Here’s a list of cars from this year’s BDC the broken Z06 was able to limp around Laguna quicker than: Mazda Miata (1:50.68), Volkswagen Golf R (1:46.95), Bentley GT3-R (1:43.51), Lexus RC F (1:43.20), Cadillac ATS-V 6M (1:40.18), Mercedes-AMG C63 S (1:40.50), and the Cadillac ATS-V 8A (1:39.65). Also, the totally healthy Cadillac CTS-V managed to just pip the lame Z06 by 8 hundredths of a second (1:38.52).

Those bested competitors are just from this year’s group of contenders. Dig into the history books and you’ll see the busted ‘Vette was also quicker than an Audi V10 Plus (1:38.70), Shelby GT500 (1:38.70), Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (1:38.82), Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series (1:38.90), Porsche 911 Carrera S4 (1:39.19), and a Chevy Camaro ZL1 (1:39.20). Chevy fans can take solace in the fact that even when wounded, the Z06 is quicker than most other high-performance machines. But can you imagine what time a working Z06 would lay down? Remember, the ZR1 managed 1:33.70. Sigh.

From Angus MacKenzie: “Kudos to GM for always manning up and putting its cars forward for the most grueling performance test in the business. So it was disappointing to see Big Nasty sidelined by a mysterious engine problem not even the GM techs on hand could figure out. And disappointing to also discover that a car supposedly specially earmarked for BDC testing had been sent to us with worn-out brake pads.” Oh yeah, the brake pads were in terrible shape. Had the Z06 been making full boost, one of us might have been in big trouble on 198.

Final thoughts: There’s simply no excuse. Chevy’s now thinking that California’s 91 octane confused the computer when it mixed with 93 octane from Arizona, where we picked the car up. I say that’s bogus because not only is California the Z06’s largest market and our “premium” fuel a known quantity, but you’re going to tell me this is what will happen to skinflint owners who try and save a buck or two by filling their cars with midgrade fuel? That, and this entire ordeal, is unacceptable.

9th Place: Volkswagen Golf R

The R is for Understeer

By Edward Loh

Sharp-eyed readers will note that in BDC 2014, the VW Golf GTI came in dead last. One year, 72 more horsepower, two more driven wheels, and an R badge later, and big brother Golf R finishes only one step up (over a DNFing ‘Vette)? How does that work?

Well, a hot hatch of any stripe is going to face fierce competition in a field stacked with single-purpose sports cars and hot-rodded super sedans. There is only so much you can squeeze from an economy car platform built for practicality and efficiency. Much of what we loved about the Golf, the features that made it our 2015 Car of the Year—its smart package, excellent ride, and handling balance—put it at a disadvantage in our quest to find the car that delivers maximum fun and emotion.

What we loved about the Golf that made it our 2015 COTY put it at a disadvantage.

That being said, our editors found a lot to like about the R on Route 198, particularly the 292-horsepower, 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder. “The engine pulls hard and loves to rev,” Ron Kiino said. “Best turbo-four of the hot-hatch crowd.”

The brakes were also singled out for their initial bite, firm pedal, and fade resistance. “The brakes are a pleasant surprise—they’re great—which is completely unexpected from VW,” Jason Cammisa said.

These positives were confirmed on the track, too. “The car is quiet, smooth, refined,” said Randy Pobst, who did in-car commentary for our YouTube videos while hot lapping. “It’s a very comfortable car to drive in terms of ride and in terms of being easy to control. I talked casually a lot because I wasn’t having to work very hard to go fast.”

How fast? The Golf R’s 1:46.95 was the second slowest of this year’s group. That sounds bad until you look at our handy Laguna Lap list and note that that time beats a 2006 Porsche Cayman S, the most recent Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X (another AWD turbo 2.0-liter making 291 horsepower) we tested, and a few other bona fide sports cars.

Of course, even the fastest lap does not define the best driver’s car, and what most prevented the Golf R from being in the BDC conversation was fun-killing understeer attributed to the 4motion all-wheel-drive system. “The [track] experience was dominated by understeer, and being on the power just makes the understeer worse,” Pobst said.

This was not solely a track complaint, either. “The AWD system sucks the sparkle out of the chassis,” Angus MacKenzie said. “Driving the Golf R fast on Route 198 was basically a matter of estimating how much understeer you could get away with before you started washing off too much corner speed.”

Exhilarating, even neutral, handling was not the only thing missing; the turbo-muffled engine note left a lot of the editors flat. “There’s just no passion here. No emotion,” Evans said. Jonny Lieberman concurred: “It doesn’t do a very good job of transmitting excitement. In this group of contenders, the Golf R comes across as comfortably numb.”

Sound harsh? Perhaps, but Frank Markus summed it up best.

“This car never felt like a serious BDC contender,” he said, “but as a single car tasked with providing all the utility, comfort, speed, and driving enjoyment a budget-minded enthusiast requires, it’s a great choice.”

8th Place: Lexus RC F

Fast, Ferocious and Flawed

By Ron Kiino

In a day and age when turbocharging and downsizing are the names of the game to producing high-performance (and more fuel-efficient) engines — look, Bentley dropped all the way down to a twin-turbo, 4.0-liter V-8 — the naturally aspirated motor is fast becoming the California condor of Best Driver’s Car. In fact, in this year’s field, only the Mazda MX-5, Porsche GT4, and Lexus RC F came unboosted, and of those only the Lexus offered eight cylinders. And yes, we adored all eight of ’em.

During our road evaluation up and down Route 198, we also found much to love with the RC F’s eight-speed automatic, from its quick, seamless shifts and intuitive programming to its spine-tingling, throttle-blipping downshifts in Sport+ mode. MacKenzie even opined, “Easily bests the Caddy CTS-V’s tranny in terms of smoothness and responsiveness.”

Not surprising, the 5.0-liter, eight-speed powertrain puts down fast stats—0-60 in 4.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 12.9 seconds at 110.3 mph—including a lap time of 1:43.20 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Sure, the Lexus’ time is about three ticks off that of last year’s BMW M4 (1:39.69), but it’s still quicker than the Audi RS 5 (1:43.60) and the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Edition 507 (1:43.49) that we lapped back in 2013.

Problem is, the Lexus’ speed doesn’t translate to emotion, a much-needed qualifier when ranking contenders for Best Driver’s Car. Per Jonny Lieberman: “I want engagement. I want to be thrilled. What I don’t want is to get out of the car thinking, ‘That’s much faster than I thought.’ That’s the problem with the RC F.” The car’s unrelenting suspension over bumpy pavement was more problematic. Noted Jason Cammisa: “With this bouncy suspension, it’s no wonder the ESP system has been programmed to handle Nurburgring jumps. The damn thing is always pogoing off the ground.”

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2015-Lexus-RC-F-cockpit.jpg" alt="Both the Lexus RC F and the LS 400 have naturally breathing V-8s, but every other facet of the RC F is far removed from the calm, demure LS 400.” class=”wp-image-77516″ />

In addition to the V-8, Pobst heaped praise on the power and behavior of the RC F’s braking system around MRLS (“The brakes stayed strong. The car was straight as an arrow—no moving around, just planted. So the RC F is really good in the brake zone.”) but not much else. “You release the brakes, and it’s like a box of chocolates,” he noted. “You’re not real sure what you’re going to get. One minute it’s oversteer, next minute it just pushes. The handling still needs to go to finishing school. It’s a difficult car to drive fast because its characteristics are different in every corner.” Further, although the eight-speed auto proved a champ on the street, Pobst deemed it more of a chump on the track. “I was completely distracted by the shift program; not happy. I’d get into a hairpin—especially a slow hairpin like Turn 2 or the Corkscrew—turn down into the corner, go for the power, nobody home. Blah!”

As MacKenzie put it: “First impressions of the RC F are good. Drive it beyond seven-tenths, though, and the chassis falls apart.” So enroll the RC F in finishing school, Lexus, address those three-tenths, and invite us back to graduation—we’d be happy to take it for another spin.

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2015-Lexus-RC-F-engine.jpg" alt="We’ll likely never see an engine like the LFA V-10 ever again, but Lexus seems happy with the V-8 found in the RC F. We were, too…” class=”wp-image-77520″ />

7th Place: Cadillac ATS-V

When better-driving BMWs are built…

By Frank Markus

We loved the Cadillac ATS-V enough to rank its four-door variant well ahead of the iconic BMW M3 in October’s “Four-Door Miracles” comparison test. Yes, the BMW has lost some of its driving ultimacy of late, and thankfully Cadillac has stepped in to give enthusiasts what Bavaria isn’t these days: a rigid and sculpted body, an expertly balanced chassis, and the power and torque required to connect the corners on a challenging road or race circuit while delivering visceral thrills. For this exercise we opted for the sportier-looking and 34-pound lighter coupe variant. Angus MacKenzie spoke for us all, noting that its “steering and chassis are a delight, way more communicative and composed than the current-generation of BMW M3/M4.” Ed Loh described the ATS-V as “a modern update on the E46 [2001-2006] M3,” praising its blistering speed, well-balanced ride, and eagerness to change direction. Ron Kiino enthused about the slick manual gearbox, and newbie Jason Cammisa deemed this V to have “the best stability-control programming this side of Ferrari” and among “the best clutch and e-gas calibration of any sport sedan in the world.”

At Mazda Raceway, driving ace Randy Pobst emerged heaping praise on the no-lift shift feature. (The engine computer prevents over-revving during shifts while keeping the turbos spooled.) He proclaimed the ATS-V to be “really happy on the racetrack” and said it delivers “a very stable chassis without a lot of understeer.” He was pleased that the damping allows enough compliance to permit some weight transfer when transitioning to power at corner exits, preventing oversteer. And indeed its lap times (we track-tested both six-speed manual and eight-speed automatic coupe variants) ranked fifth place, with the swifter shifting and more advantageously geared automatic breaking into the minute-30s with a 1:39.6 and the manual trailing by 0.6 second.

So how did the car end up in seventh place? The top two reasons are brakes and steering. Both work great but with poor feel/feedback. Angus MacKenzie: “The ATS-V stops just fine. It’s the pedal feel that’s the problem.” Pobst: “There’s a lot of travel where nothing is happening, and then the braking happens way at the bottom. A couple of times I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I figured if it worked the lap before, it will probably work again, and it did.” Likewise, the steering points the car exceptionally well, but the effort and feel drew criticism for seeming artificially stiff on Highway 198 in the chassis’ Track mode (though Randy liked the feel at MRLS) and for failing to communicate intimate details of road surface grip. Jonny Lieberman correctly observed that “less than ideal steering feel will keep any car from becoming our Best Driver’s Car.”

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2016-Cadillac-ATS-V-center-console.jpg" alt="The ATS-V was one of four cars at Best Driver’s Car offering a choice between manual or automatic transmissions; we urge you to try the ATS-V’s no-lift shift.” class=”wp-image-77561″ />

Pobst felt a bit of turbo lag from the otherwise amply powerful and torquey twin-turbo V-6 on corner exits, and Scott Evans felt it “runs out of revs 1,000 rpm too early. You hit that hard fuel cutoff and think, ‘That’s it?’ ” Lieberman agreed, wishing “someone would sprinkle some magic dust on the engine, in terms of personality. It’s too quiet, and the redline is too low.”

The bottom line is that this car has all the right bits to be a Best Driver’s Car with just a bit more fine-tuning of the brake and steering feel and perhaps some minor engine calibration work. We look forward to inviting the ATS-V 2.0 to a future BDC.

6th Place: Cadillac CTS-V

Colossal Punch and Pace

By Nate Martinez

To exactly no one’s surprise, the CTS-V is both a destroyer of DMV driving records and a trigger of conversations. “Six-hunnid-n-forty horsepower,” drivers will say to an awestruck co-pilot (or an inquisitive law officer), usually finishing with, “It has the same supercharged engine as a Corvette, too!”

What its 6.2-liter heart unleashes is simply dumbfounding. It doesn’t just push you beyond legal speed limits and have you screaming Hallelujah! for its six-piston Brembos, but it also meticulously threads every corner in between with genuine track-bred balance. Runs to 60 mph take 3.8 seconds. A quarter mile flashes by 11.9 seconds at 122 mph. It jinks with an ice skater’s speed and precision, and all this from 4,108-pound, rear-wheel-drive, eight-speed automatic sedan.

“God, it’s good to be alive!” exclaimed Randy Pobst as he unbuckled from the Recaro after setting the third fastest lap of this year’s BDC. “What I mean is, it’s good to be alive and driving cars like this: big, powerful. The CTS-V has a tremendous amount of torque, and I’m a big fan of torque. I can just see the American flag waving.”

The CTS-V pushes you beyond legal speed limits and has you screaming hallelujah!

Although we deeply admire the V’s heroic punch and pace, applying its muscle at ten-tenths took a lot of calculation. Perplexed by its five-mode Performance Traction Management system, many responded by beelining it straight to its most ruckus Race mode (no computer safety nets), in which the rear tires struggled to keep hold, even when the 295/30ZR-19 Michelin Pilot Super Sports were optimally warmed up.

Noted Pobst: “It has a delicious balance when the (traction and stability) controls are off. But I have to be careful with the throttle application because it’s pretty easy to spin the back tires when the controls are off, especially in second gear off Turns 11 and 2. I have to be real gentle with the throttle coming in.”

On Route 198, Ed Loh was surprised by the chassis’ “tons of vertical movement” in PTM mode 3, 4, or 5, adding, “Steering is more natural and suited to this car, better than the artificial heft of the ATS-V.” Granted, the higher the mode, the more track-focused the vehicle’s electronics become — damper stiffness, throttle reactiveness, steering heft, and shift speed all are upped. Yet even still, it was clear that the congruency of systems and human involvement was not as well-orchestrated as those in other contenders. Nannies play a huge role in tempering the V’s urge to annihilate its tires.

Furthermore, shedding speed took significant pedal pressure. “I was surprised at the brake effort,” Pobst said. “It took a lot to make the car stop fast; it took a lot, and it did stop fast.” As for the gearbox, Loh praised its sharpness, saying it was “eager and aggressive” and adding that it was “rarely caught out.”

Without a doubt, the CTS-V is a super sedan. Hustle it with a wary right foot, and you’ll get a whiff of what a five-seat Corvette might be like. But as prized as stopwatch athleticism is to our BDC jury, so too is the pixie dust of harmony that sometimes connects hands to contact patches and feet to pistons and pads. That feeling of oneness and driver confidence is primarily what held the brutal Caddy back.

And let’s face it: Extracting 640 horsepower from a V-8 goes a long way toward the pursuit of happiness..

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2016-Cadillac-CTS-V-cockpit1.jpg" alt="Better handling. More luxurious. Superior speed. The CTS-V has come a long way from gens one and two.” class=”wp-image-77603″ />

5th Place: Bentley Continental GT3-R

By Angus MacKenzie

This is not what we expected. Even with no rear seat, a titanium exhaust system, and lashings of carbon fiber everywhere, the Bentley Continental GT3-R would surely still be too big, too heavy, too ponderous to be a serious Best Driver’s Car contender. The charms of Bentley’s stylish and effortlessly fast Conti coupes are many, but the laws of physics suggest that pinballing from apex to apex through the twisties with your hair on fire and a broad grin planted on your face ain’t one of them. Nobody told the GT3-R, though.

“This thing is 2.5 tons of fun! Shockingly brilliant balance on power and huge grip everywhere,” enthused Jason Cammisa after a storming run up and back Route 198. “Made me feel heroic,” said EIC Ed Loh. “So quick! And athletic!” added Lieberman. It might weigh 213 pounds less than a Continental GT V8 S, but at 4,919 pounds—a solid 811 pounds more than the next heaviest car here—the GT3-R is anything but svelte. It’s built like an offensive lineman, but on Route 198 it drove more like a wide receiver.

“The nearest thing you can buy to a racing Bentley since the 1920s.”

The secret sauce is brake-induced torque vectoring, the inside rear caliper clamping the rotor to help the big car rotate toward the apex. That, combined with the tweaked 4.0-liter engine, which develops 51 hp and 14 lb-ft of torque more than in the regular Continental GT V8 (more during overboost), plus the beautifully matched eight-speed automatic transmission and the oily tactility of the steering, made the GT3-R feel at times like the world’s biggest, fastest, most refined Subaru WRX STI.

Not all judges were effusive in their praise, however: “There was a mildly unsettling neutrality/rear oversteer motion in a few corners,” said Frank Markus, “and my uneasiness simply stemmed from knowing how much the car weighed—and how much inertia would be in play if this thing got away from me.” And there’s some truth to the suggestion this Bentley flatters to deceive: The GT3-R’s stunning 3.3-second 0-60 mph time, matched in this group only by the Corvette Z06 (and only when the Corvette driver is right on top of the launch) is largely due to gearing that pegs V-max to a mere 170 mph rather than the 200 mph or so of most Conti GTs.

Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca laid bare the Newtonian reality: “As good as the Bentley was on the road,” said Randy Pobst, “it’s just not at home on the racetrack. It doesn’t have the precision and feels like it’s punishing the tires. And the brakes are overwhelmed—the pedal got longer and longer, and the last time into the Corkscrew I was really praying it was going to make it.”

Green contrast accenting inside and out is shared with Bentley’s Continental GT3 race car. Just 300 GT3-Rs were built — 99 for the U.S.

The Bentley’s mass makes understeer the default handling mode on the track and there’s little you can do to adjust the car’s attitude once you’re committed to a corner. Front-end grip went away as front tire pressures spiked rapidly from 44 to 60 psi during the warm-up (the rears went from 40 to 45 psi) and the brake fluid couldn’t handle the temperatures generated by the massive carbon-ceramic discs, leaving the pedal disconcertingly soft after just three hard laps.

For all that the GT3-R was an impressive 3.1 seconds a lap quicker than the W-12 GT Speed that finished 9th in 2013. Progress, then. But not enough to make it our Best Driver’s Car.

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2015-Bentley-Continental-GT3-R-interior-seats1.jpg" alt="The 3.3-second 0-60 time produced by this monstrous V-8 is deliciously quick, making the GT3-R the swiftest Bentley we’ve tested.” class=”wp-image-77644″ />

4th Place: Mercedes-AMG C63 S

Please Sir, May I Have Four Doors?

By Scott Evans

A funny thing happened after we voted: Everyone had a little trouble explaining why the Mercedes-AMG C63 S didn’t place higher. I know because I asked them when I couldn’t immediately answer the question myself. The general consensus eventually went something like this: The C63 is great, and there’s nothing really wrong with it, but those three other cars were even better.

Going back over the judges’ notes, though, there were a few small missteps keeping the C63 off the podium. Garnering the most “yeah, buts” were the brakes. The “buts” were varied: Scott Burgess and I thought they needed more bite, Jonny Lieberman felt some movement from the rear end he didn’t appreciate, and Jason Cammisa got unexpected fade coming down the hill climb. Angus MacKenzie and I agreed it could use more tire, which would help braking, too.

Also netting some mixed reviews was the steering, which many judges hailed as a top-tier electrically assisted system. Burgess and Frank Markus dissented and asked for more road feel and feedback.

Cammisa, Chris Walton, and I registered a final complaint. We agreed the transmission’s engagement when leaving a stop at anything less than wide-open throttle was aggravating. Regardless of driving mode, the first press of the pedal does nothing, as does the next 30 percent of the pedal travel. Then the engine suddenly revs up more than you’d expect, but the car still pulls away “like a 2-horsepower Briggs & Stratton is under the hood,” as Cammisa put it.

High praise came for the V-8, which kept the C63 S on the more powerful CTS-V’s bumper.

These complaints helped keep the C63 out of the top three, but everything else about the car made it the best sedan in the test. High praise came for the 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8, which kept the car on the bumper of the significantly more powerful Cadillac CTS-V. Words such as “monster,” “unbelievable,” “staggering,” and “brutal” (in a good way) were thrown around. “Sounds like Godzilla gargling chainsaws” was Ed Loh’s hyperbolic but apropos assessment.

“On the road it doesn’t feel like it’s leaving 137 hp on the table compared with the big-banger 640-hp CTS-V,” MacKenzie said. “It delivers a massive shove between the shoulder blades when you nail the gas, accompanied by a thundering exhaust note. I still miss the naturally aspirated 6.2, but the more I drive this new engine, the more the heartache fades. It’s going to be an all-time great, too.”

The chassis also drew high praise. Loh said it was “one of the best ride-handling trade-offs of all the cars here.” Ron Kiino went further, saying it “feels like what a BMW should feel like.” Cammisa, Loh, and I also remarked favorably on its willingness to hang the rear end out on power and, more important, how easily controlled such oversteer was.

Judges were also fans of the seven-speed multiclutch transmission (once underway). Cammisa and I found its performance programing “near perfect” (his words), and MacKenzie praised it as “significantly better — faster, smoother, more precise — than GM’s eight-speed.”

Randy, for his part, was pretty impressed. “The engine does not feel like a turbo four-liter, it feels like a normally aspirated seven-liter, and that’s delicious power immediately upon opening your throttle. It gets kind of a little push maybe from being a long sedan with a front engine that makes me have to wait to get the car turned and pointed toward the apex, and then roll into the power. You’ve got to be a little gentle because of all of that torque. You can brake the rear wheels of this, but the power goes to the ground. It’s a nice package in a seriously muscular and almost brutal performing sedan.”

When asked point-blank, most judges couldn’t think of a better sports sedan currently on the market in any class. Markus and Kiino, neither of whom participated in our three-way comparison test between the C63, M3, and ATS-V, independently noted they understood how the C63 won after driving it. MacKenzie, always one to turn a phrase, declared it “a hooligan in a Hugo Boss suit,” and several judges made reference to it being a kind of four-door AMG GT S almost. A great car, but just not quite as great as the ones that finished ahead of it.

3rd Place: Mazda MX-5 Miata

By the numbers, the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata should not have even been in the same county with most of the Best Driver’s Car contenders.

Its 155-hp, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is 137 ponies behind the Golf R, the second weakest engine in our pack. Four MX-5 engines combined fail to add up to the power of one supercharged Chevrolet Corvette Z06.

The MX-5 Miata is “proof you don’t need a lot of power to make a great driver’s car.”

The MX-5 had the worst braking numbers, taking 111 feet to go from 60 mph to 0. It had the worst acceleration, quarter-mile, and figure-eight times in the bunch.

But every editor loved driving it, in part because of one criterion where the MX-5 crushed all comers. It weighs 2,296 pounds, more than 700 pounds less than the next lightest vehicle and more than 1,000 pounds less than the third lightest contender. Two Mazda roadsters weigh 327 pounds less than one Bentley GT3-R.

“It’s proof you don’t need a lot of power to make a great driver’s car,” Ron Kiino said.

Added Jonny Lieberman: “The chassis is incredible, the steering is remarkably good, the manual transmission is great, the wind’s in your hair, the bugs are in your teeth—all that.”

Indeed, the MX-5 doesn’t need the power of a modern-day supercar. It doesn’t even offer drive mode selection for enhanced exit smiles. There are just two drive modes for the MX-5: top up or top down.

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2016-Mazda-MX-5-Miata-Club-cockpit.jpg" alt="Updated for modern times yet familiar in feel and layout, the Miata helm provided the start for many a racing career.” class=”wp-image-77727″ />

“You get in and drive,” Scott Evans said. “It’s always in Sport mode.”

Everyone praised the very precise steering, which was best handled by holding the wheel lightly with your fingertips, and the six-speed manual transmission for its quick, easy throws. The chassis provides lots of driver feedback, so when pushing the MX-5 to the edge, it’s easy to pull it back. It was the most tossable car in the bunch, which is why it finished third overall.

The MX-5s weakest link is the suspension. The body rolls heavily through high-speed corners, the car can become almost too tail-happy, and there’s not as much lateral grip as you might expect on a car meant to tame a canyon’s twisty trail.

“The suspension’s just a tad too soft; while the ride is terrific, the MX-5 rolls and dives more than it should,” Angus MacKenzie said. “And the brakes weren’t up to the task at Mazda Raceway.”

The track did exploit some of the MX-5 weaknesses. The big elevation changes and hard corners at MRLS require lots of power and big brakes to create great times on the track. The MX-5’s 1:50.68 time around the track was the slowest. Its body roll becomes even more exaggerated at high speeds, making it harder to control and creating too much oversteer.

<img src="http://enthusiastnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/42/2015/10/2016-Mazda-MX-5-Miata-Club-engine.jpg" alt="With no plastic “beauty” cover adorning the I-4, accessing spark plugs is that much easier in the Mazda MX-5.” class=”wp-image-77729″ />

But Randy Pobst said drivers need to adjust to the MX-5 more than the car needs to adjust to them. “Actually, the Miata kind of drives itself, “he said.”A light touch on the steering, light touch on the brakes, and the better I got at that, the faster the car went and the better it all felt.”

Although the numbers didn’t add up to a win for the MX-5, its overall performance put it on the podium.

“Driving the MX-5 top down on a winding road is an unalloyed joy,” MacKenzie said. “This is how driving a sports car used to be.”

2nd Place: Porsche Cayman GT4

Reckoning Time

By Jason Cammisa

It’s been two decades since the debut of Porsche’s modern mid-engine sports car, and Porsche conspiracy theorists have maintained that Porsche would never build one with 911 horsepower because it would prove, once and for all, that the 911’s rear-engine layout was wrong all along.

It’s reckoning time. The GT4 isn’t just a Cayman with the 7,800-rpm, 3.8-liter flat-six from the 911 Carrera S. It also inherits its complete front end from the 911 GT3, replete with that track monster’s (optional) carbon-ceramic brakes. These front rotors are larger than the wheels on the original Boxster.

You sit low and bolt upright in the GT4’s optional fixed-bucket seats, grabbing the Alcantara steering wheel like monkey bars. The six-speed’s shifter also sits high to your right, and its linkage is much like the steering’s: perfect weighting, zero play. The clutch has a long, positive engagement zone and friction material that somehow makes it impossible not to be smooth.

With far less sound deadening than in lesser Caymans, you hear glorious mechanical noises coming from the flat-six that sits inches behind you—whirring, spinning, and rattling loud enough that at least one editor thought something was wrong. Yet it’s all completely drowned out at full throttle when deafening intake honk conspires with roaring exhaust to produce some of the most musical sounds in the automotive universe. The best way to describe it is like ripping silk, amplified through the bell of a trumpet.
The short-stroke flat-six revs like it has no flywheel at all, making blip-throttle three-gear downshifts a mere flick of the ankle away; dropping 50 mph on the way into a corner is as simple as breathing on the center pedal. Randy Pobst says these brakes are among the best he’s ever felt.

Rev this melodic powertrain to redline three gears in a row, and you’ll risk handcuffs.

Several words that show up repeatedly in the editors’ comments: perfect, wonderful, devilish, racy, great, incredible, beautiful, awesome, absolutely phenomenal, the best, the finest, and “I’m in love.” Yet there are two others that show up just as often: “understeer” and “gearing.”

First, gearing. The GT4 may offer, as Angus MacKenzie put it, “the finest manual-transmission shift feel in the business,” but then Jonny Lieberman brings up a fine point, asking, “What’s the point of a manual-only car that doesn’t need to be shifted?”

With a second gear good for 82 indicated mph, you could leave the GT4 in second and forget about it. Absurdly long ratios decimate its 0-60 time, which would drop from our measured 4.1 seconds into the mid-3s if the GT4 had ratios similar to other six-speed manuals. Editor-in-chief Ed Loh describes the transmission as “the Fuji apple of manual gearboxes: sweet, crisp, delicious.” Too bad the gears turn it into forbidden fruit. Rev this melodic powertrain to redline three gears in a row, and you’ll risk handcuffs.

Then there’s the understeer issue. Although we feared the mid-engine Cayman might experience traction problems at its rear end with the 911’s motor in the middle, our GT4 actually demonstrated a marked lack of front-end grip. It resolutely understeered both on the road and on track, even after we sent it back to Porsche to fix an alignment issue. The issue persisted even with the anti-roll bars adjusted to favor oversteer. This kind of cornering attitude is something you just don’t see in Porsche sports cars — much less in Porsche GT cars — so we’re assuming it was a problem with our car.

Neither issue was enough to make us fall out of love with the GT4. But the two combined meant that there was another car that we loved more. Or maybe the conspiracy theorists were right.

1st Place: Mercedes-AMG GT S

The Best Sports Car Mercedes Has Ever Built

By Chris Walton

The 2016 Mercedes-AMG GT S in about 800 words? Let’s start with these: exclusive, luxurious, sensuous, quick, nimble, versatile, and in the right hands a track-ready supercar capable of lap times that don’t seem possible considering its versatility and second-place road test performance results. So what makes GT S, a car seemingly too stylish to be taken seriously, such a singularly special supercar or definitive driver’s car? In boxing terms, the never-flinching Animal from Affalterbach fights above its class—and wins—consistently and decisively.

First, that engine. We auto scribes never thought AMG could again conjure a powerplant with the personality, potency, and tractability of the naturally aspirated, 6.2-liter V-8 (M156/M159) we’ve enshrined in the Engine of the Gods temple. Yet the boffins at AMG have outdone themselves with the M178, and in no other application is it better showcased. The twin-turbo, 4.0-liter V-8 produces an impressive and wholly accessible 503 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque at a mere 1,750 rpm. Its throttle response, glorious noise (Frank Markus perfectly described as a “rifle-shot report from the exhaust on overrun”), and a torque plateau as flat and monumental as a Utah mesa have begotten a new era in engine design, performance, and efficiency. That quick-acting throttle is due in part to the placement of the turbos within the V of this engine, thus shortening intake and turbo plumbing. The M178 sounds, behaves, and feels unlike any turbocharged (or supercharged) engine has.

If this isn’t the definitive everyday supercar, then what is?

Combine that engine with a standard AMG Speedshift seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, launch control, and optional active powertrain mounts, and the GT S rockets to 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds (or 0.2 second behind the 592-hp Bentley and 650-hp Corvette). Yet the GT S earned more than 20 mpg combined in our Real MPG testing, and Angus MacKenzie noted that the GT S is capable of “sleepily slurring the upshifts at just 1,200 rpm on a light throttle” in Comfort mode.

On Route 198, the GT S was without dispute the car that inspired the most confidence and encouraged all levels of drivers to push on, as if saying, “Yeah, we got this.” In fact, Ed Loh was “breathless” after his stint on 198. It’s the right size with the right amount of power, balance, and brakes to devour a road like that. Twisting up and down that road has a way of pointing out flaws you don’t see in an urban setting, like automatic transmission programming and response. So when Cammisa said the GT S had the “best automatic transmission sport-mode programming here by a mile; shifts are instantaneous and completely imperceptible on the hill climb,” it means somebody in Germany took the time to calibrate the AMG GT S for exactly this type of road.

Assertive steering and trustworthy front-end bite are commensurate with its tenacious grip. Unlike in some other cars here, the grip followed all the way to the rear of the car, giving the GT S unflappable poise over rough spots that upset other cars. Lieberman purposely aimed the AMG at the bumps. “I had no fear whatsoever that the suspension would not be able to handle them.”

Some felt the Race setting’s damper firmness proved a bit flinty and the steering slightly frenetic for public roads; they found either Sport or Sport+ more subdued and better suited to unpredictable surface changes.

Despite not being the most expensive, powerful, widest, grippiest, or purpose-built machine for barnstorming, the AMG GT S truly proved its mettle in Race mode on the racetrack. With all systems primed for peak performance and a smooth, familiar track at his disposal, Randy Pobst put down the quickest laps of the day. “I don’t know if I have ever driven a better-handling car,” he said as he got out. “I love it that much.”

Randy went out of his way to extoll how well the rear-wheel drive AMG GT S was able to put the power down to the track’s surface, and with a sense of bewilderment said, “It felt like it had downforce — like it was all-wheel drive.” He was on to something, because his 1:35.57 lap time landed it directly between two all-wheel drive cars: the Nissan GT-R Nismo at 1:35.51 and a Porsche 911 Turbo S at 1:35.62.

By the end of the program, it grew obvious that the AMG GT S was greater than the sum of its parts. Part Palm Springs weekend getaway car, part mountain road menace, and part track star, and wholly incomparable. Burgess proposed an experiment: “I challenge anyone to drive the AMG GT S and not get out with a smile on your face. Incredible.” Evans went even further with “I need a cigarette, and I don’t even smoke. What a phenomenal car.” If that’s not the definition of an everyday supercar, then what is?

Keeping our noses clean with paint protection film

Over our weeklong BDC program, we put more than 700 miles on each competitor. That includes the transit stages from Los Angeles to central California’s Route 198 to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and back down to the old Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County. To protect the noses of all of the vehicles, we relied on the help of Service Group Distribution, which sent fast and friendly installers to apply CCL Design’s premium Nano-Fusion Paint Protection Film. To protect the windshields from the gravel on El Toro’s unmaintained runways during the filming of “World’s Greatest Drag Race 5” (find it on YouTube or Motor Trend On Demand!), we hire a street sweeper and temporarily cover the windshields with the Nano-Fusion PPF. Does it work? Heck yeah. We’ve incurred no nose damage and only one cracked windshield in the past three years.